My long-planned intention in 2001 was to propose marriage to my roller coaster-loving wife at the apex of Batman: The Ride, a popular attraction at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia (Los Angeles County). But as the coaster twisted and turned for two eternal minutes, there would be no words, except for what sounded like the shrill cry of a pre-pubescent female in the front row of an 'N Sync concert.

"You were really loud," she said, when the coaster finally pulled to a halt. I had no comeback, having left my ability to speak on the first inverted corkscrew.

I popped the question later that day on a park bench, at the end of a short hike. It was a much less memorable location, but had the advantage of being grounded.

I've always been afraid of roller coasters, refusing to ride them long after sprouting up past the "you must be this tall ..." mark. There are many reasons, including a mild fear of heights and a tendancy toward nausea. But my biggest obstacle is a distrust of technology and a wild imagination - an unfortunate combination when you're eight stories high with your feet dangling into nothingness, wondering what might happen to that flimsy-looking track in an earthquake.

So I must have been temporarily insane when an editor inquired if I was interested in writing a piece on roller coasters, and I responded with a too-confident "Oh, hell yes." And not only would I ride all of the biggest Bay Area roller coasters. I would ride them in one day.

There were rules, and they were simple: I would try to experience every major roller coaster (no water flumes, free-fall drops or other non-coaster attractions) in the Bay Area in a sunup to sundown time frame, without any special treatment. No advance calls to public relations people, no carpool lanes while commuting from park to park and none of the special fast passes that many amusement parks now charge for - ensuring that everyone else's wait will be prolonged while a laughing pack of teens cuts to the front of the line. When everything was finished, assuming I could pull myself out of a fetal position in time for deadline, I would rank the coasters from best to worst.

The 10 highest-caliber thrill rides in the Bay Area were carefully chosen, based on size, speed and rankings on the Web site www.bestrollercoasterpoll.com. Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo has a new ride called Tony Hawk's Big Spin, which was not in operation on the afternoon that I visited that park. I've reviewed that coaster separately today on the Chronicle's parenting blog, The Poop, at www.sfgate.com/blogs/parenting. The Quicksilver Express mine coaster at Gilroy Gardens is another highly rated ride that was trimmed from the list at the last minute.

The journey took me from Santa Cruz to Santa Clara to Vallejo, riding a coaster approximately every 39 minutes. With more than 4 miles of track covered, while getting turned upside down more than 20 times, amusement park food was not an option ...

The roller coaster revolution in the United States started in 1884, when La Marcus Thompson built his Switchback Railway on Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y. Within a decade, a similar contraption was built on the shores of San Francisco, in a spot that later became Playland-at-the-Beach.

Amusement parks sprouted up across seaside and lakeside coasts in the United States, and in 1924, one the biggest, the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, hired coaster-building legend Arthur Looff to construct a state-of-the-art thrill ride. Built in 47 days, it cost $50,000, or the price of a low-rent Bay Area kitchen renovation in 2008.

Eighty-four years have passed since the first passengers rode the Giant Dipper, but that's hard to gauge as I drive down Ocean Boulevard toward the beach in Santa Cruz, with the red-and-white coaster a beacon in the distance. I first saw this coaster featured in the 1980s movies "The Lost Boys" and "Sudden Impact," and it doesn't look like a single wooden board has been changed.

The Boardwalk, for those who haven't been there, is like walking into the middle of a Stone Pony-era Bruce Springsteen song. Just to give an idea of how frozen in time this seaside park has become, it will feature two live performances by Sha Na Na before the summer is over.

I drive to the front of the Boardwalk at 10:50 a.m., minutes before the ride opens. There's no parking lot, entry fee or guy trying to take my picture so he can sell it back to me later for $20. I simply drop 50 cents in a meter, walk across the street, buy $3.50 worth of ride tickets and minutes later I'm being pulled up the hill of the sixth-oldest roller coaster in the United States.

There were once more than 1,200 seaside amusement parks in the United States, but now there are fewer than 30. The Bay Area isn't a destination coaster region, but the Giant Dipper still has developed a national reputation, just by surviving.

"The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk has a lot of nostalgia factor, and that's becoming a really big thing," said Robb Alvey, a Los Angeles roller coaster enthusiast who runs www.themeparkreview.com with his wife, Elissa.

Robert Coker, who wrote "Roller Coasters: A Thrill Seekers Guide to the Ultimate Scream Machines," calls the Dipper a classic.

"If you're in the area, you simply can't not go," said Coker, who has traveled across the country to test new thrill rides and see how the older ones are holding up. "There's the historic value that you have to add in, but even standing on its own it's a fun ride."

With no loops or corkscrews, but plenty of speed and a wooden coaster's steady rattle, the Dipper is the perfect way to start the day - a thrill ride appetizer before losing one's lunch on the more aggressive rides.

The sun is out, but with a haze from a recent fire turning part of the sky an orange/raspberry sherbet tinge, it seems like dusk. The only thing that would make this ride better is if Sha Na Na was playing "Those Magic Changes" on the bandstand 50 yards away.

Disneyland nearly killed the thrill ride, although to be fair, the wooden roller coasters from the earlier part of the century had long since lost their novelty. After Walt Disney's park opened in 1955 to enormous success, it appeared that more tame, family friendly theme parks were the future.

But attempts to clone the Disneyland model failed, and in 1961 Six Flags over Texas opened. The park gravitated toward thrill rides from the beginning, building several innovative attractions, including the first log flume. Pretty soon, it seemed as if every major city was building an amusement park filled with roller coasters.

By the time Great America was built in 1976 in Santa Clara, it was late to the game. The park had some excellent rides during its first years, including Turn of the Century and Willard's Whizzer. But it was never a national roller coaster mecca, and still isn't today.

"You hear about roller coaster enthusiasts being from the Bay Area, but not too many people are traveling to the Bay Area just to ride the coasters," said Mitch Hawker, who founded www.bestrollercoaster poll.com. "That should tell you something about the quality compared to other parks."

Hawker's poll, well regarded by fans because it uses a complex comparative algorithm, tells the story. The Giant Dipper is the Bay Area's highest-rated roller coaster, finishing 39th among the 178 wooden roller coasters rated in 2007. Hawker has a separate steel coasters poll, where Discovery Kingdom's Medusa is the top-ranked Bay Area coaster at 66 out of more than 370, followed by Great America's Flight Deck at 68.

At the other end of the poll, the Grizzly at Great America is legendary for all the wrong reasons, and has the dubious distinction of finishing dead last among the wooden coasters.

"It's funny. It's one of those rides that people say 'You have to ride it just to see how bad it is,' " Alvey said. "It has almost become a draw. You want to ride the worst coaster."

My drive from Santa Cruz to Santa Clara is traffic-free, and I pull into the nearly empty Great America parking lot just after noon, thinking this will be much easier than I thought. Feeling confident that I'll ride the five coasters on my list in a little more than an hour, I stroll casually to the front gate.

Then I notice the fleet of buses parked near the front, which have transported thousands of middle school students to Great America. Suddenly I'm in "Children of the Corn," the only adult in a community of hormonal young teens. Temporary tattoos are everywhere. I can't turn my head without seeing someone making out. And the lines, already brutal on the more popular rides, are made worse by the packs of smug Goth kids laughing as they rush past me to the front with their fast passes.

My first ride on Flight Deck, known until recently as Top Gun, is worth the wait. It's a smooth but fast ride, with a big first drop followed by several twists and turns that swoop over pools of water.

I'm nearly scared out of my mind on a winding coaster called Invertigo that changes speed quickly with a series of lifts and drops. The best part is the harnesses, which are arranged like the disability seating on a Muni train, forcing you to look into the eyes of your terrified neighbor. I sit across from the image of my youth, a skinny 13-year-old kid in a black T-shirt advertising a trendy rock band that his parents probably hate, who looks as scared as I feel.

It's all downhill from there, so to speak. The Demon, an early 1980s coaster that uses the original big hill from Turn of the Century, definitely feels its age, battering my head against the harness in the corkscrews. And the Grizzly is as uncomfortable and poorly designed as advertised, made worse by the biggest crowd of the day. Imagine having to wait in a 40-minute line for a root canal.

The most excruciating experience is the Vortex, a stand-up coaster which spins the rider in tight coils that are more disorienting than terrifying or fun. Leaving the park at 3 p.m., my head feels slightly foggy, and I really want to go home.

But there are four more coasters to ride, and only time for a quick Excedrin run at a local 7-Eleven. Traffic adds another 30 minutes to my hour-long drive north, and I pull into Discovery Kingdom a little after 4 p.m.

The Marine World Africa USA of my youth, visible from Highway 101 just south of San Mateo, was all about tigers and whales and Popeye-themed water-skiing shows. If you were a kid in the late 1970s or early 1980s, and you wanted to ride anything faster than the putt-putting jungle safari boats, you kept driving down the road to Great America or maybe Frontier Village.

Marine World moved to Vallejo in 1986, struggled financially and seemingly changed its name every few months. In 1998, the park started installing roller coasters, beginning with Kong and Boomerang. A few years later, steel coasters Medusa and V2: Vertical Velocity were added, along with a modern wooden coaster named Roar! Six Flags took over ownership of the park a few years ago, changing the name one more time last year to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom.

The Bay Area may be a leader in the arts, but it's a follower when it comes to theme parks. The ground-breaking roller coasters can be found at the nation's biggest parks in Southern California, New England, Florida and Ohio, which seem to add a new taller-and-faster thrill ride every year. The most sought-after attractions right now are high-octane rides such as Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey, or the Millennium Force, a 30-story-high coaster in Ohio's Cedar Point amusement park that makes the Demon look like a speed bump.

But with Cedar Fair Entertainment Co. taking over Great America in 2006, the parks closest to San Francisco are now owned by two of the world's biggest theme park operators, making the future a little brighter. Great America is investing in a still-unnamed new wooden coaster, which should open next year. Tony Hawk's Big Spin looks a bit runtish next to Discovery Kingdom's bigger coasters, but it adds another family friendly option for parkgoers who find V2 and Medusa a bit too fast.

"Both of those companies are well known for building record-breaking roller coasters," Coker added. "I think it's a given that over time you're going to see some really impressive coasters (in the Bay Area)."

The maps I printed out say Discovery Kingdom is in Vallejo, but the parking lot appears to be closer to Berkeley, and the detour sets me back another 20 minutes. As I'm shuttled from the lot to the front of Discovery Kingdom, and the coasters get bigger with each passing second, I try to relax. Would my editor notice if I just reviewed this tram ride and was done with it?

With my Vortex headache still lingering, I can't express how much I don't want to ride the U-shaped V2, which looms over the entrance to the park. My instincts prove right: It's the fastest and most intense of the seven roller coasters I've endured so far. It also had a long line, leaving just 65 minutes to ride the three coasters left on my list.

Riding the wooden coaster Roar! after V2 and Vortex is like drinking half a pot of coffee after a particularly bad drinking binge. It's very fast with banked turns that are designed more like a steel coaster, and one big exhilarating drop that is worth even a long wait in line. It almost makes me forget my bad time on the Grizzly. By the time it's over, I feel rejuvenated enough to jog to the other side of the park, where I'll try to fit in my last two rides, Kong and Medusa, in the half hour before closing.

"Wah wah wah the park will be closing in 12 minutes wah wah wah."

At least that's what I think she said. The public address system at Medusa makes the young ride operator sound like a cross between Charlie Brown's parents and an order-taker at the Burger King drive-through.

Still, I'm calm, having timed this thing perfectly. The crowds thinned significantly in the last 20 minutes, and this line is completely manageable. The bad news comes as I'm queued in line for the third car from the front, no turning back, with only one group ahead of me.

"Wah wah wah mechanical failure wah wah wah be patient wah wah wah."

She may have said the problem was mechanical, but looking up, it's clear that in fact digestive failure stopped this train. A passenger in the second car from the front threw up mid-ride, and physics did the rest. The car I will be riding in is splattered with vomit.

Hoping that Six Flags has some kind of SWAT HazMat team, I'm disappointed to see that the cleaning procedures involve a slow-moving teenager with a big red water hose. He's followed by a girl with a roll of brown paper towels, like the ones they used to have in my junior high bathroom. To air the cars out a little more, they let the train ride once without passengers.

There are two trains in circulation on Medusa, but a quick head count makes it clear that I will be riding in the barf car. If I go to the back of another line, I'll risk waiting too long before the park closes. After a fierce internal debate, I decide that my duties as a journalist trump the prospect of heading to my in-laws' house smelling like Lindsay Lohan after a particularly rough night out. The ride is ready. The door in front of me is about to swing open.

What happened next is the most definitive proof I've seen that there is a God.

The gaggle of teens clutching their fast passes don't even know what hit them. They run giggling past all of us, right to the front of the line, nestling in the puke seats. Noses crinkle quizzically as the ride takes off.

V2 and Vortex had been too fast or curvy. The Demon and Grizzly battered my aging body. But Medusa is just right today, as I climb in the seat, starting what would be that coaster's third-to-last ride before closing. As we take off on what would be my favorite ride of the day, the sun is still high enough on the horizon to warm my face.

As the train reaches the top of the hill and plummets down, high-pitched, happy screams are all around me. I can barely even tell which one is my own.

More on coasters: This week is roller coaster week on The Chronicle's parenting blog, The Poop. For a review of Tony Hawk's Big Spin at Discovery Kingdom and other coaster-related posts, check out www.sfgate.com/blogs/parenting today through Friday.

Read our review of 10 Bay Area coasters at sfgate.com/magazine.

Bay Area roller coaster ratings

Medusa

Location: Six Flags Discovery Kingdom

Year built: 2000

Poll rating: #66 (steel coaster poll)

Medusa's initial 150-foot drop provides the biggest single thrill of any local coaster, and the giant loop, rolls and corkscrews that follow are a blast. But it's the design of the train - an open-air sit-down harness coaster that gives every car the feel of being in the front - that makes this ride the Bay Area's best. The views are fantastic, with the first big slow turn overlooking the entire park and San Pablo Bay beyond. And if you time it perfectly, you'll get the sunset, too. Medusa may not be the best coaster in the nation, but it's still an epic ride.

Giant Dipper

Location: Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

Year built: 1924

Poll rating: #39 (wooden coaster poll)

The chipped paint, creaking wood and knowledge that this coaster was built during the Calvin Coolidge administration definitely add to the experience. But it's an excellent ride even without the historic context, with one exciting hill after the other. The Dipper has the long steady rattling motion that you want from a wooden coaster - feeling more like a massage than the painful throttling provided by lesser competitors. Bonus points for appearing in a "Dirty Harry" movie and "The Lost Boys."

Invertigo

Location: Great America

Year built: 1998

Poll rating: #243 (steel)

Inexplicably shaped exactly like the female reproductive system, this ride is a good impetus for that sex talk you've been avoiding and a lot of fun. Invertigo takes part of the physical space of long-since-dismantled Tidal Wave - and it's a worthy update with some of the same charms. Invertigo is speedy but not too jolting and has two stopping points in the middle of the ride, giving the parkgoer a chance to pause and assess his or her fear. More thrill ride seating should be like this, with the passengers facing each other.

Flight Deck

Location: Great America

Year built: 1993

Poll Rating: #68 (steel)

A huge addition to the Bay Area thrill ride scene when it was built as Top Gun a decade and a half ago, Flight Deck is still Great America's biggest draw for hard-core coaster fanatics. Flight Deck is the fine cognac of Bay Area roller coasters - with an initial 90-foot drop that's fast and smooth, followed by a series of loops and turns that build and build. One nice asthetic: Your legs hang into nothingness, swooping over pools of water below. All the "Top Gun" movie references were removed after Paramount sold the park, so be sure to cue "Danger Zone" on your iPod before the ride.

Roar!

Location: Six Flags Discovery Kingdom

Year built: 1999

Poll rating: #55 (wooden)

This modern wooden coaster runs a lot like a steel ride, with a big drop, breakneck speeds and lots of fast banked turns. Our biggest gripe was a longer-than-usual wait to get on the ride - although some of that has to do with the impressively lengthy 3-minute ride time (and they appeared to be running just one train). It was our fifth-favorite coaster but only by a hair - Invertigo, Flight Deck and Roar! are completely different experiences, but almost interchangeable in terms of entertainment value.

V2: Vertical Velocity

Location: Six Flags Discovery Kingdom

Year built: 2002

Poll rating: #152 (steel)

This churro-shaped monstrosity that looms over the entrance of the park offers long waits for a short, very intense ride. It's the only impulse coaster in Northern California, which gives it a futuristic vibe, although it's definitely an acquired taste. Another coaster that owes a lot to Tidal Wave, the views of the park from V2 are pretty great, even though you're upside down half the time. The kids seem to love it, but riders who grew up on more conventional coasters might feel a bit out of place.

The Demon

Location: Great America

Year built: 1982

Poll rating: #287 (steel)

Once the mightiest coaster in Northern California, The Demon has become sort of like Mike Tyson - sticking around about 10 years too long and exhibiting some increasingly erratic behavior. That first big drop is still a thrill, but it would be a lot more impressive if the one on Flight Deck wasn't three times better. The loops and corkscrews that once gave nightmares to a generation of Hall & Oates-loving teens now seem like ancient coaster artifacts. But we still vote to keep the Demon around for nostalgia's sake.

Kong

Location: Six Flags Discovery Kingdom

Year built: 1998

Poll rating: #307 (steel)

This bright red coaster cowers in the shadow of Medusa, and we'd recommend just forgetting Kong and riding its bigger neighbor twice - no matter how much longer the lines are. There isn't much of a drop on Kong, just a series of fast-paced spins and turns that are more disorienting than scary. It's definitely not god-awful but not particularly memorable, either.

Vortex

Location: Great America

Year built: 1991

Poll rating: #289 (steel)

God help the theme park patron who steps on this ride after eating a Great America corn dog. If you like tight nausea-inducing turns and getting your head battered on the head rests, then this is definitely the ride for you. The stand-up coaster is so fast and short that it doesn't give you a chance to get scared, just annoyed at the discomfort that you're experiencing. We're starting a petition to lobby Great America to bring back Willard's Whizzer and get rid of Vortex, which is a pale comparison.

The Grizzly

Location: Great America

Year built: 1986

Poll rating: #178 (wooden)

JGreat America is opening a new wooden coaster next year. Presumably, they'll be shipping this one to Guantanamo Bay. More of a torture device than a thrill ride, the Grizzly isn't particularly scary. But it is quite painful, featuring a jolting ride that will take care of any loose filling you might need removed. Even the cars are poorly designed - if you're taller than 5 feet, 10 inches, expect to bash your knees repeatedly on the steel inner carriage. I want my money back.